586 { China’s Quest
the 1898 lease on the New Territories be extended beyond 1997. After consul-
tation, the MFA replied that “China intends to take back Hong Kong,” and
asked MacLehose not to raise the matter in a scheduled meeting with Deng
Xiaoping. Contrary to that advice, MacLehose broached his suggestion to
Deng, who replied immediately, “At the appointed time, China will certainly
take back sovereignty over Hong Kong.” When MacLehose observed that that
might cause anxiety among people in Hong Kong, Deng replied, “Tell the
Hong Kong investors not to worry.”^15 Throughout the Anglo-Chinese nego-
tiations on Hong Kong, Deng called the shots on the Chinese side.
The issue was again engaged in September 1982 during a visit by Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher to Beijing. The fact that Thatcher had just fought
and decisively won a war in April 1982 with Argentina over an illegal chal-
lenge to British ownership of the Falkland Islands complicated China’s situ-
ation. The Falkland Islands had been under British control since 1690, and
a treaty of territorial settlement between Britain and Argentina in 1850 im-
plicitly ceded the islands to Britain. Thatcher responded to Argentina’s sei-
zure of the islands with a full-scale military operation to oust Argentina and
restore British rule. Britain’s victory in that war greatly boosted Thatcher’s
popularity at home. Might she use her Falkland popularity to adopt a simi-
larly tough stance vis-à-vis Hong Kong? Beijing made it clear to Thatcher that
China was fully prepared to be tough should Britain adopt a tough approach
toward Hong Kong and China.
Thatcher’s position during her 1982 visit was that all three conventions
(of 1842, 1860, and 1898) were still legally valid, and that Hong Kong Island
and Kowloon Peninsula had been ceded to Britain in perpetuity. Britain was
willing to consider, however, trading sovereignty for a continuing British role
in the administration of Hong Kong. From the Chinese perspective, the three
conventions were unequal treaties without any legal validity whatsoever. The
doctrine that treaties are legally invalid because they involved compulsion is
not generally accepted under international law. That was, however, the stated
position of Chinese governments, including the pre-1949 government of the
Republic of China. Deng Xiaoping laid out China’s position in talks with
Thatcher in September 1982. Hong Kong, including the Island and Kowloon
Peninsula, would revert to Chinese sovereignty:
On the question of sovereignty, China has no room for maneuver. To be
frank, the question is not open for discussion. ... That is to say, China will
recover not only the New Territories but also Hong Kong Island and
Kowloon. It must be on that understanding that China and the United
Kingdom hold talks on the ways and means of settling the Hong Kong
question.^16 (Emphasis added.)
By demanding that Britain accept as a precondition for negotiations the
premise that Hong Kong, all of it, was Chinese, Deng was in effect demanding